The San Antonio-based nonprofit embarked on a five-year collaboration Monday with the University of New Hampshire to do research for complex space science missions and in astrophysics, earth and ocean science.

The deal marks the first time Southwest has created this kind of working relationship with a university, institute spokeswoman Maria Martinez said in an email, although it has worked closely with the University of Texas at San Antonio in an educational capacity.

The deal could make the collaborators more competitive for federal funding and includes plans for Southwest to open a new Earth, Oceans and Space Department at UNH's Durham campus — which also will help the institute better serve its clients in the New England aerospace industry corridor, said Michael McLelland, Southwest's executive director of the space systems directorate.

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“We've got at 25-year history working with the various folks at UNH, and this is the next step in that partnership,” he said. “We're very excited because this allows us to combine our talents to go after new missions, in particular in the earth science area.”

For several years, Southwest and UNH have been working on a NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, which will use four satellites to study “how the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect,” according to the mission's website. The transfer of energy during that process changes space weather and can affect “telecommunications networks, GPS navigation, and electrical power grids.” The satellites should launch in October 2014, McLelland said.

The institute will lease about 2,000 square feet at UNH for the department, which initially will include 11 staff members whose salaries will be paid for by Southwest, McLelland said. Neither he nor Harlan Spence, director of UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, could say how much funding the partnering institutions would provide to execute the agreement.

Spence said UNH is among a wave of universities across the country forming public-private partnerships, though he said this one has a unique structure. Until now, the university has been limited in the kinds of projects it can execute because of the financial and technical reporting requirements demanded by “big NASA spaceflight programs,” he said.

He said it's difficult to develop that infrastructure “when the pressures on university funding are greater” and “when the government's requirements are going up.” The agreement also will create opportunities to involve undergraduate and graduate students, he said.

“It's a great proving ground for students to become the future innovators and the future employees, potentially, of Southwest Research Institute,” Spence said.